April 14, 2009

FOI Advocate Judith Krug Dies

One of the most tenacious fighters for freedom of information and the right to know -- and to read -- has died. Judith Krug, who headed the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom for more than 40 years, died in Illinois on Saturday at age 69. Her constant pressure to keep libraries and minds free from censorship was felt even at the Supreme Court level, helping lead to the high court's 1997 decision declaring the Internet as a medium that deserves the widest range of First Amendment protection. An obituary of Krug appears here.

D.C. media lawyers and First Amendment advocates who worked with her over the years today mourned her passing.

"Judy was a force of nature," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Dalglish said that largely because of Krug and the late Jenner & Block attorney Bruce Ennis, who won the 1997 case Reno v. ACLU, "the Internet remains a vibrant, open network of ideas ... She believed that nobody had a right to tell anyone else what they could read, watch, or say." The American Library Association was a lead plaintiff challenging the Communications Decency Act in the 1997 Supreme Court case.

Gene Policinski, vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, recalled Krug as a "tough, resilient opponent of those who would attempt to censor voices or ideas they deemed unwelcome."

Media lawyer Kevin Goldberg of Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth in Arlington, Va., said of Krug, "She was unrelenting in her commitment to the First Amendment, and unforgiving to those who dared compromise it. My generation of First Amendment advocates should look to people like Judith when we think about what it means to truly champion a cause."